Two years into the economic storm that saw the collapse of several renowned financial institutions, we have had plenty of time to assess where blame for the tumult should be apportioned. The reckless behaviour of the banks played a pivotal role. But I believe the crisis was the result of a wider problem, a malaise that seeps into the very way organisations operate, the way leaders are developed and how they lead.

It is our current notions of leadership that are at the heart of this crisis, and we need to replace them with an approach that is built upon sustainability – that serves not just employees and businesses, but also impacts positively on societal and ecological durability.

The old way uses vocabulary like 'driving' and 'engineering' when talking about organisations, treating them like machines that can be controlled by leaders to maximise shareholder wealth with – as recent events have shown – sometimes little concern for the way they serve customers, employees or markets. But businesses are not mechanical, the human beings that work within them are not component parts, and if we want to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis we need change.

Leadership in the current business landscape is about small groups of powerful executives setting a vision for their organisation and defining the processes which will enable them to assure its success. But leadership is not a science.

There are no universal laws governing the achievement of such pre-determined goals with any degree of certainty. Leadership is about dealing with uncertainty and unpredictability. The real bottom line is about sustainability.

When I talk about sustainability in this way I am using it on a number of levels. There is the personal level, which means sustaining psychological and physiological health. There is sustainability in terms of creating a work environment that encourages collective responsibility for success of all stakeholders – including employees. Then there is sociological and ecological sustainability, playing a responsible role in the community, and looking after the environment.

We need to develop leaders who embody this approach. Leaders motivated by a concern for human sustainability, who understand that one of the many outcomes from such a concern is high performance. Leaders who treat employees as resourceful humans, rather than human resources.

Our research into leadership shows that effective sustainable development derives from an integration of three core processes: reflection on experience (learning through doing), psychological intelligence (having a strong sense of purpose that serves the larger concerns of the world and noticing assumptions that guide action), and long term wellbeing. Bringing these processes together with sustainability at personal, enterprise, organisational, societal and ecological levels, provides a focus for leadership attention.

Having a sense of 'larger purpose' is the fundamental hallmark of sustainable leadership. It addresses questions such as the kind of society leaders want to create for future generations, organisation they want for their employees, and what effect they want their organisations to have on the environment. All too often leaders confuse their own purpose with the commercial imperatives of the organisation with disastrous consequences for personal integrity and ethical standards.

This is the time to address our assumptions about leadership. To carry on in the old way would be to blindly stroll back into a replay of the current financial crisis. The voracious pursuit of profit and the drive of personal ambition will not get us out of this cycle. Instead, we need to work with leaders to make sure they play a responsible part not only in the success of their organisations, but also in that of the wider community.

The inter-dependence between personal sustainability and the capacity to influence the world to go down a more sustainable track goes largely unnoticed by sustainable development and CSR professionals, but exploring and developing this linkage is critical for the sustainability leaders of the future. Sustainability needs to be at the heart of business, public and third sector leadership – it is not just the preserve of sustainable development leaders.